The Green Horror
by X5R-731
Summary: Terminal City has been invaded. But when Max's only ally on the outside betrays her, who can she turn to for help? Dark AngelWar of the Worlds crossover
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:** Dark Angel belongs lock, stock, and smoking barrel to James Cameron & Co. I own none of it. No reason for legal action_

**THE GREEN HORROR **

By

X5R-731

Max was bored – and lonely. She'd holed herself up in Terminal City with the other transgenics in an effort to mix with her own kind at the suggestion of fellow X5, Alec. But she missed Jam Pony and all her friends there – Original Cindy, Sketchy, even Normal (who knew someone could get so used to the sound of 'bipbipbip' they'd actually miss it). But most of all she missed Logan.

She tried not to think about him. The whole point of this little self-imposed exile was to keep him safe, out of harms way of the tailor-made virus coursing through her body. She'd even let him think she had started a relationship with Alec to get him to stay away. But not a day went by where her thoughts didn't drift towards Seattle's self-styled champion.

Wandering the streets of Terminal City she took in the bizarre appearances of the colony's residence, but after a week, the variety got dull. Then she caught sight of some unexpected familiar faces: Ralph and Bullet. The last time she'd seen them they had commandeered a van with Zero and Fixit making a hasty departure from Seattle. What were they doing here and where were Zero and Fixit? She was about to call out to them when she caught sight of another familiar – this one from a more unpleasant time.

Flashback - Manticore 

_Young Max and Jondy raced through the deserted halls of Manticore. They'd done this dozens of times before – sneaking out of barracks and getting back before the guards found them. Zack told them it was an exercise in escape and evade but truth be told – it was fun breaking the rules. Running down the corridor they could see the dormitory, another four meters and they were home free._

_A soldier stepped out of an adjoining hallway and Max and Jondy collided into him. That was it, the escape was ruined, they would spend the next month in solitary undergoing psych evaluations._

_The soldier – a sergeant – looked down at them in surprise. He was eating something, and after looking around, he broke off two pieces and handed them to the girls. Max and Jondy tentatively took the small brown bars and sniffed them cautiously. It didn't look like the usual rations but smelled exotically wonderful. They both took a bite when the sergeant didn't seem to suffer any ill effects. The sweet explosion in their mouths overwhelmed their taste buds with ecstasy. _

_As they gobbled down the brown bars the sergeant warned, "Don't eat so much so fast. It'll make you sick. Now get back to your bunks before we both get into trouble."_

The sergeant was doing a good job of hiding in plain sight – dressed like any one of the many of Seattle's destitute, if Max didn't know him she'd have been fooled. What was a Manticore soldier doing on the fringes of Terminal City?

She watched as the sergeant followed Ralph and Bullet into a deserted building. Worried, Max chased after them. Inside she found the dilapidated building deserted. A trail of footprints on the dirty floor led to a gently swinging door. Softly pushing the door open, Max gazed into the gloom her night vision revealing nothing dangerous. With her cat-like agility, she crept expertly down the stairs.

Halfway down, two gunshots blasts echoed from bellowed, followed by screams. The screams weren't remotely human. Max jumped down the rest of the way and searched desperately for Bullet and Ralph. While wandering the basement she stepped in something soft and squishy.

"Ugh," she said disgustingly and looked down to see two luminescent pools of green slime.

Kneeling down she touched the goo with her gloved hand and squished it between her fingers. She could hear running footfalls but were too muffled and far away to pinpoint. This stuff need to be analyzed and there was only one person she knew who could.

Max sat in front of the computer screen trying to work up the courage to call Logan. She'd already sent him an e-mail and he was waiting for her to open the vidlink. They hadn't really spoken to each other since that business with 453 and offered up her services as a cat burglar to help him re-establish Eyes Only. Telling herself she was being ridiculous, she opened the link to find herself looking into the most famous eyes in Seattle.

"Hey," she smiled.

"What do you want Max?"

_Well,_ she thought. _If he wants to play the bitter ex-boyfriend, fine_. "I need your help."

"Big surprise," she heard someone grumble off screen.

She recognized that voice, it belonged to Asha Barlow. What was she doing there, she thought jealously but quickly put it out of her mind. She had more important things to worry about. Max filled Logan in on the Manticore soldier and the disappearance of the X6's, all the while Logan looked like he was working on his computer. It irritated her that she didn't have his complete attention but there wasn't much she could do about it.

When she'd finished, Logan said, "I'm not sure what you expect me to do, Max."

Remaining calm she said, "I want to scroll through Manticore personnel records to find out if he's who I think he is."

"And as I'm the only one who has access to that information who isn't trying to kill you, you would like to use mine," Logan sighed impatiently. "Fine. I'll have it ready when you get here."

He cut the transmission without a good-bye.

Max was surprised by Logan's attitude. She knew shouldn't be, but she was. Couldn't Logan see that every time she looked at Alec all she could see was Ben? A second chance to succeed with this brother where she'd failed with the other. Max quickly got her act together. Now was not the time to brood about her messed up life. She pocketed the goo-stained glove and rode her ninja to Logan's new digs.

The dilapidated old house was a far cry from the Fogle Towers penthouse, but Logan said he could make due. Max sat astride her ninja trying to work up the nerve to go inside. This was ridiculous, she was a genetic super soldier trained to be a top-level assassin. She'd faced down ten to one odds, Reds, rogue X5's, mutants and cyborgs – confronting this one cyber terrorist should not be so difficult. So what if he was the best man she'd ever known and was quite possibly the only person in Seattle who could save this city from itself. Something stank in Terminal City and it wasn't just the toxic waste this time.

"Are you going to go in or not?"

Max spun around to find Alec. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Enjoying the night air," he said. "I followed you, of course."

"Go home Alec, this doesn't concern you."

"True, but I never let that stop me before. Besides it about time you paid Cale a visit. Watching you sulk around Terminal City is so depressing."

"I thought we weren't suppose to mix with ordinaries."

"Since when do you listen to me?"

"If you two are finished waking up the neighborhood," Asha said from the doorway. "Logan is waiting for you."

Max fought down the feelings of jealousy at the sight of the S1W operative. The two of them had gotten off on the wrong foot and had been stepping on each other's toes ever since. Max resented Asha's relationship with Logan, feeling like she'd been replaced during her – hiatus. The fact that she believed in Logan's crusade one hundred per cent didn't help either.

Max had never taken Logan's mission seriously. The idea of one man fixing this broken world was absurd if not out-in-out laughable. She'd only gone along with it originally because Logan had the contacts to find her missing family. Later because she'd fallen in love with him.

Alec jogged up to Asha and smiled. "Hey."

_Please_, Max thought desperately. _Please don't flirt with her. I'm trying to make Logan think we're a couple. He's not going to believe it with you ogling every female you encounter._

Asha just regarded him coldly and went back inside.

"Guess she took your advice to heart," Max said.

"Doesn't mean I wanted her to stop liking me."

Walking around the old house, Max noticed Logan had tidied up the place considerably. He was sitting at his new terminal when he spun around to face her. Max stopped. She couldn't quite put her finger on it but Logan seemed – off.

"You have something for me," he said.

She took out the glove. Taking the glove, Logan got up and left the room. "You remember how everything works."

She wanted to put his attitude down as the cause of her unease, but the whole situation didn't feel right. Scrolling through data she found what she was looking for: Staff Sergeant-Major John Kincaid, career military, went AWOL a few weeks before the pulse, whereabouts unknown.

As Max contemplated what a deserter would be doing in a toxic island, Logan returned. "There's not enough of that substance to get a clear sample. Can you take us to where you found it?"

Warning bells were going off inside Max's head. Logan's request didn't make sense. There was more than enough slime to analyze something. And why would he want to go to Terminal City? She could easily get as much as he needed with any risk to himself.

"Okay," Max said, hoping he'd explain on the way.

"We'll take my car," Asha said.

Mentally, Max told Asha to drop dead, but followed them to the car. When they reached the SUV somebody shouted, "Get down!" Followed by Asha being ripped in half by a shotgun blast. What happened next was almost too bizarre for words.

Alec watched with horrified fascination as the blonde guerrilla flopped back. He noticed that instead of red blood and guts splatter it was more of a green spongy slime pop and there were no organs he could identify. To top it off "Asha's" body began to melt.

He was tackled to the ground as a green laser bolt zipped passed his head, sizzling his shoulder. Alec looked up to see a handsome, scruffy man with chiseled features on top of him.

"What part of 'Get down!' do you not understand?"

Max, meanwhile, found herself with a gun pointed at her head – by Logan. She reacted instinctively, knocking the gun from his hand. He responded by punching her in the face. As he scrambled for the gun, Max kicked his legs out from under him. Flipping him onto his back, she found herself staring down the barrel of Logan's gun.

Logan's hand suddenly disappeared leaving just a slimy green stump. The scream he emitted was the same scream she'd heard in the sewers, beneath Terminal City, followed by something that sounded like guttural whale song coming from Logan's mouth.

A van screeched to a halt in front of then and a curly haired man with an unkept beard jumped out spraying machine gun fire at their attackers.

"John," he shouted. "Hurry up, let's go."

The man who'd tackle Alec, bundled him into the back of the van. John then ran up to her and clubbed Logan when he tried to get away. Picking him up in a fireman's carry he said, "C'mon, let's go." Motioning towards the van.

John jumped into the drivers seat after dumping 'Logan' in the back while Max climbed inside pulling the rear doors closed as the van sped off. Inside she saw an attractive auburn haired woman in her thirties examining 'Logan'.

"You shot his hand off," she reprimanded.

"What was I suppose to do, let him kill her?"

She just shook her head in frustration. "Harrison pass me the first aid kit. I hope we have enough sutures to close this."

"Alright," Alec shouted. "Somebody wanna tell me what the FUCK just happened!"

"Well," the bearded man said. "I suppose introduction are in order: I'm Professor Harrison Blackwood, astrophysicist; Dr. Suzanne McCullough, microbiologist and -"

"Sergeant-Major John Kincaid," Max finished. "Thanks for the chocolate, by the way."

"That was you?"

"Yeah. We ended up getting sick, but it was worth it."

"Uh, your welcome."

"And this, as I'm sure you've guess, is not Logan Cale."

"So who, or what, is it?"

"It's a clone," Suzi said as she finished sewing up its arm.

It was Harrison who went on to explain. He began with the invasions of 1938 and 1953, Grover's Mill, the war of stealth they'd been waging against the Mor-Tax. Then the battle lines changed: the pulse hit, General Wilson disappeared and Colonel Ironhorse was captured. The colonel learned that the Mor-Tax had been usurped by the true masterminds of the invasion – the Mothren – but not before his clone revealed the location of the Cottage. The aliens attacked in force destroying their home and killing most of the personnel. Ironhorse escaped and sacrificed his life to save the others. Since then they'd continued fighting from a series of small underground Sanctuaries.

Max and Alec had no choice but to believe them.

"So what happened to Logan," Max asked. "The real Logan?"

"He's still alive if that's what you're worried about," Suzi answered. "The clones are symbiotically linked to their hosts. It's how they are able to access memories and mannerisms. The human and clone are so perfectly in tune with one another, that if the human host dies so does the clone."

"That's what happened with Colonel Ironhorse," Harrison added.

"As far as we know," Kincaid said from the drivers seat. "Both Logan Cale and Asha Barlow are being held in the aliens base somewhere underneath Terminal City."

"You said if the human host dies so does the clone, right," Alec said. "So what happens if the clone is killed?"

To Be Continued …


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer:** Dark Angel belongs lock, stock, and smoking barrel to James Cameron & Co. I own none of it. No reason for legal action_

**THE GREEN HORROR **

By

X5R-731

Asha awoke with a start gasping for breath. Acting almost entirely on instinct, she pulled herself out of the alcove and collapsed onto her hands and knees. After a couple of dry heaves, she eventually threw up the contents of her stomach then leaned against her alcove in a sitting position. When her head finally cleared, she assessed her situation.

"Okay, I'm sitting naked on a cold floor in a strange room covered with green jizz with a headache the size of the Space Needle. Sounds like the end result of a typical bender at UCLA."

But Asha was certain she'd graduated (or at least left) her Alma Mata some years back, so this was probably altogether more serious. She struggled to her feet, grimacing as pins and needles assailed her limbs. It felt like she hadn't moved in days (and probably hadn't).

The room was small but spacious, dominated by six other alcoves like hers. One contained an overweight, balding middle-aged man. The other four contained what had to be transgenics: one male with feline features, one female with avian features and two too perfect humans (one male/one female). But it was the alcove immediately next to hers that drew her undivided attention.

"Logan," she said in a hushed voice as she dropped to her knees next to him. Like the others he was in some sort of coma with nerve-like tendrils creeping into his mouth, nose and veins. Asha was afraid to touch him fearing that removing the tubes could do more harm that could. Instead she leaned down as far the membrane covering him would allow and whispered, "Logan I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm going to try and get help. Just try to hold on till I get back."

Nice thought, but how she was going to accomplish that was another matter. She didn't fancy walking up downtown Seattle (or wherever) wearing nothing but a thin layer of slime and a smile. While this would no doubt get her noticed, it was not the type of attention she would want.

Hearing someone approaching, Asha waited by the entrance. When a man dressed in black wearing a knee length overcoat appeared, she jumped up and punched him in the gut. As he doubled over, she grabbed his head and slammed her knee into his face. He snapped up and made some sort of gurgling noise just before Asha slugged him across the jaw. He spun around into the wall and slid to the floor.

Asha quickly stripped off his coat and put it on. She contemplated taking his boots when she heard a commotion coming her way. She heard, "One of the human subjects is escaping. Stop it!"

As she dashed down the corridor, lethal green bolts of light flashed past her.

_What did I fall asleep watching a Star Trek,_ she thought hysterically. _I hope it was the original series or at least the Next Generation. I'd hate to find out all this is the result of an episode of Voyager, or worse – Enterprise._

She found herself in a sewer and scrambled up the nearest ladder. Pain seared through her left shoulder as a bolt grazed her.

_Okay,_ _no dream._ She thought as she lost consciousness.

Joshua (also known as Dog Boy) wandered around Terminal City's underground pensively. Something was wrong in Terminal City, but he didn't know what. He couldn't think of anyway to explain his unease to the others, even Max. So he decided to take matters into his own hands and try and find the source of the wrongness.

His quest had led him (surprise, surprise) to the sewers where he found a body floating in the sewage. Bodies in the Seattle sewers were nothing new, lots of people (mainly nefarious ones) disposed of corpses in this unregulated post-pulse world. But Joshua could sense something different about this one. He was almost positive it was still alive.

The gentle giant reached down and yanked it out of the water discovering a pale blond woman. Joshua recognized her as a friend of Logan's, and if she was a friend of Logan she must be a friend of Max. Therefore the smart thing to do would be to take her to Max. Picking up the blond woman (Joshua didn't know her name) he set off for the surface, when he suddenly caught wind of a familiar scent coming from the opposite direction.

"Max?"

To Be Continued …


End file.
